The Last Marauder
by Austinwoods
Summary: The story of what happened to Lupin and Tonks at The Battle of Hogwarts. Lupin's POV.


Disclaimer: All your Harry Potter are belong to J. K. Rowling.

**The Last Marauder**

"We've only got a half an hour until midnight so we need to act fast!" Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice boomed through the Great Hall temporarily bringing Lupin out of his thoughts.

Lupin knew that Kingsley was now telling those who had remained behind to fight about the plan that the Order of the Phoenix had come up with, McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick, were taking groups of fighters to the tallest towers where they would have a good vantage point to work spells, and inform those fighting below what was going on. Lupin doubted that even with the castles natural defenses that the fighters would hold out until dawn. Lupin heard his name said and looked up.

"Remus, Arthur, and I will take groups into the grounds…" Kingsley said pointing to each of them as he spoke their names.

All of their lives rested on Harry Potter, who was looking for something in the castle that he couldn't tell any of them about. It seemed like a hopeless situation but Lupin had seen Harry do amazing magic before and Dumbledore had trusted him with the task of bringing down Lord Voldemort, he knew as long as Harry was still fighting they all had a chance.

"Ok, leaders up here and we'll divide up troops." At Kingsley's words there was a rush of motion as the remaining students, and other fighters stood from the house tables and surged towards the raised platform that the teachers and Order members were standing on. Lupin saw Professor McGonagall step down off the platform and hurry over to Harry who had been listening to the battle plans. They exchanged a few words and then Harry ran out of the Hall. McGonagall hurried back up to the platform.

"Alright, that's ninety of us." Kingsley said after doing a quick head count. "So that should be fifteen for each of us. Alright! Everyone from you over are going with Professor Sprout" He said pointing at Neville Longbottom as he did so. After five similar divisions he asked if any of the fighters had any objections about their pairings, when no one spoke he seemed to take that as a sign that there were none. "Ok, split up and get to your positions, leaders, you know where to be!"

Lupin's group consisted completely of 7th years from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, none of which he recognized, he thought Kingsley had probably done this on purpose given his teaching history. "Alright," He told them, "our group is supposed to be patrolling the edge of the Forbidden Forest by Hagrid's Hut. We think that the Death Eaters might try to penetrate the Forest, and then attack us from behind, so it's our job to make sure that doesn't happen. We also think they may bring Dementors, so do any of you know how to conjure a Patronus?"

Four of the students raised their hands.

"Good, for the rest of you, think of the happiest thing you can and then say '_Expecto Patronum_'. It's a really complicated spell, but even a shield patronus can be useful. Follow me." Lupin made a move to leave the Great Hall, but then stopped and began addressing the fighters again. "I'm not going to lie to you, some of you might die. You need to understand that we are dealing with pure evil. You will witness horrible things here, and you need to be prepared for that, if any of you do not wish to fight than you are free to leave with the others, we will think no less of you if you choose to do so. This is your final chance, do any of you not want to fight?" no one said anything, "You're all sure?" again no one spoke, "Very well, follow me. Lupin set off out of the Great Hall and through the giant front doors out to the castle grounds, his group of fighters trailing right behind him. He knew that he was leading some of them to their deaths, but he tried to push that thought out of his mind, he needed to focus. He brought them up to Hagrid's Hut and then stopped to check the time. It was 11:45, they had fifteen minutes until the attack began. The fighters in his group were now talking to each other quietly and silently practicing spells as they waited.

Lupin's thoughts began to wander and he began to think about Tonks, she had insisted that he call her that even after they had gotten married, and Lupin had always wondered why she didn't just change her name and be done with it. The knowledge that she and Teddy were safe was a comfort to Lupin and he was able to focus on the present without too much difficulty.

Ten minutes after Lupin had checked the time he heard a rumbling sound coming from the woods. He motioned for the students to stop and listen, and as he did so the rumbling seemed to be getting louder. It was growing nearer to them and he could hear tree branches snapping as whatever it was came closer. Suddenly a giant came bursting out of the edge of the Forrest with what looked like a baby giant on its back. Lupin had already raised his wand to attack when he recognized the figure on the giant's back.

"Hey, Hagrid!" He called as the other fighters lowered their wands as well, "Hey, Grawp" He added as Hagrid's half-brother looked down at him with a confused expression on his face. "You here to help with the defense?"

Hagrid looked at him, and Lupin realized the reason he hadn't immediately recognized Hagrid was because he had his dog Fang slung over his shoulders. "Yeah, we her' You-Know-Who from all the way up in the mountains. We figured we oughta come 'en help. Wer goin' up ter' the castle now. Come on Grawpy!" Grawp, who had still been looking down at Lupin now set off towards Hogwarts, Hagrid still on his back.

With that most of the students went back to talking, some of them were watching Grawp's shrinking form, and a few were looking up and down the edge of the Forest. What couldn't have been more than a minute later, what Lupin had been dreading finally occurred, he saw about ten dark shadows appear from the edge of the forest fifty meters away. Lupin again quieted the students, by shushing them and motioning to the figures, who were moving slowly towards the front of the castle, and then said in a whisper, "Alright, we want to take as many down as possible at once, so don't attack until I give the word, aim to stun." There was a murmur of agreement and a few of the students nodded. "Okay then, let's go" Lupin said as he crept off towards the Death Eaters.

When they came within twenty meters of the group one of the Death Eaters stopped, Lupin and his group stopped too, now that they were closer Lupin was able to count that there were twelve of them.

"Did you hear something?" the Death Eater asked. The leader of the group turned around, and Lupin thanked Merlin that the moon had just gone behind a cloud and they couldn't be spotted.

"Damn it Capps, if this is another deer…" The leader began but was cut off as Lupin yelled "NOW!" and fifteen voices said "_STUPEFY!_" in unison.

Lupin's curse missed its target, as the lead Death Eater had dove to the side as soon as Lupin yelled, but he saw at least 4 of the Death Eaters crumple to the ground. "Spread out!" Lupin yelled to his group as he shot another stunner at a Death Eater.

The leader picked himself up and Lupin saw that his mask had slipped off, and he recognized the face of Antonin Dolohov. One of the best and most feared Death Eaters that Voldemort had recruited. He had been the Death Eater who had killed Molly's brothers Gideon and Fabian Prewitt.

Lupin reacted without thinking as he fired yet another stunner at Dolohov, who spun away with surprising grace for a man such as him. As soon as Dolohov regained his balance he pointed his wand at Lupin and yelled, "_Avada Kedavra!_" forcing Lupin to drop to one knee as the curse sailed overhead.

"_Expulso_" Lupin said aiming at the ground at Dolohov's feet. There was an explosion of dirt and a crater appeared in front of Dolohov, who was now swearing and trying to wipe the dirt from his eyes, as he fired a Slicing Curse blindly in Lupin's direction. The spell wasn't very powerful, but it did do its job and distract Lupin, by forcing him to conjure a shield, allowing Dolohov time to escape.

Lupin looked away from Dolohov's retreating figure, which was heading towards the main battle that had broken out close to the front doors of the castle, to see how the rest of his group was fairing. Of the fifteen students seven were still on their feet, three of them were dueling one Death Eater, who seemed to like the Cruciatus Curse quite a bit, the other four were helping the students who lay on the ground as best they could, Lupin tried not to think about how still some of them were lying. He was torn between helping the students and chasing Dolohov when one of the three seventh years slipped a stunner past the last Death Eater's shield. Lupin decided that he couldn't do much more than the students could (he had never been good at more than simple healing charms) and set off after Dolohov.

He could just barely make out the Death Eater's outline in the moonlight (the moon had come out again), as he chased him. When Dolohov got to the outskirts of the main battle he stopped and turned around to face Lupin.

"So, I get the werewolf?" Dolohov said as if the notion of a werewolf disgusted him. "Well one less werewolf in the world can't be a bad thing can it?"

Lupin, who was used to people treating him poorly because of his condition, ignored the insults and focused on his strategy for the upcoming duel. Dolohov was one of the most feared duelists of Voldemort's Death Eaters, he had an immense knowledge of Dark Magic and plenty of Slytherin cunning. Lupin was an accomplished dueler himself, but he didn't want to go into any duel without a strategy.

Dolohov struck first with a Blasting Hex that could have blown Lupin into jelly. Lupin dodged and then sent back his own Blasting Hex, which Dolohov blocked. Dolohov then countered with three Severing Curses in rapid succession. Lupin dodged the first one, and blocked the second, but the third curse partially connected with his leg, and Lupin felt a sharp pain, which he quickly pushed to the back of his mind as he fired off a stunner, which missed Dolohov, but hit a Death Eater that one of the other Order members had been battling.

"So what's going to hap-" Dolohov started, but whatever he was going to say was cut off as two giant spiders ran right into him and Lupin. Lupin was pinned on the ground by the Acromantula's front legs, it's fangs hovering over him, and from the swearing coming from where Dolohov had been, he was in a similar situation.

"_Reducto!_" Lupin shouted putting more than the usual amount of magical power behind the hex, and the giant spider flew off of him into the night, a smoking crater where it's stomach should have been. Lupin got up and looked over to where Dolohov had been. Dolohov was nowhere in sight, and his spider's head had been separated from the rest of it's body.

Lupin quickly tried his best to mend his cut leg, only halfway succeeding, and ran into the middle of the fight in search of Dolohov. He was greeted by two unmasked Death Eaters who Lupin didn't recognize, one of them fired a curse at him, which he deflected back into the other Death Eater, who fell to the ground and didn't stir. The first Death Eater looked shocked as he stared at his comrade, and Lupin took the opportunity to hit him with a stunner, which dropped him as well.

Lupin turned towards the next person, his wand pointed at them, and a spell ready on his lips, when he saw just _who_ it was.

"Tonks?!" Lupin said incredulously, as his eyes landed on his wife in the midst of the battle.

"Wotcher, Remus!" she said smiling.

"But you're supposed to be-" Lupin was cut off as Dolohov, chose that exact moment to reappear, this time accompanied by none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.

Dolohov shot a spell at Lupin, just as Bellatrix aimed a Killing Curse at Tonks. Both of the spells missed, but Lupin lost sight of Tonks as she and Bellatrix ran towards the now open doors firing spells at each other the whole way.

Lupin was now being forced towards the doors as well, as Dolohov was advancing on him firing curses with unbelievable ferocity. It was all he could do to block and dodge them, let alone counter-attack. Luckily Dolohov was distracted when a very powerful Blasting Hex that had gone astray hit the side of the school, causing a large chunk to explode inwards. Both duelists looked up to see four figures rise out of the rubble, Lupin could see two of them had red hair and one was a girl, he was almost positive that the fourth one was Harry, who now seemed to be trying to pull one of the redheads away from- he froze as he saw a fifth person, also with red hair, who was lying very still. Lupin felt dread fill him as he knew that at least one Weasley had died tonight. He was broken out of his thoughts by Dolohov and several other Death Eaters firing spells at the people inside the school. Apparently Dolohov had recognized Harry as well.

"_Incendio!_" Lupin said pointing his wand at Dolohov who again spun away, but not fast enough as the hem of his robes caught on fire which quickly spread to almost completely engulf him in flames. He was forced to conjure water out of his wand tip in order to extinguish the flames. This gave Lupin time to survey the battle while keeping Dolohov under pressure with constant stunning spells in his direction. He spotted Tonks in no time, she was only 10 meters away and locked in an intense duel with Bellatrix. Lupin knew if he tried to help he would probably do more bad than go, and he was just about to turn back to Dolohov when his heart stopped beating.

It seemed to happen in slow motion, Tonks had just dodged a curse and was bringing her wand around to retaliate when Bellatrix's follow-up Killing Curse hit her squarely in the chest, her normally laughing face became one of shock as she fell backwards onto the ground, her eyes staring into infinite. Lupin felt as though his heart had been shattered into a million pieces, as he watched in horror as the only woman he had ever truly loved was killed in front of his eyes.

Bellatrix laughed at the death of her cousin, and Lupin was reminded of how Sirius had died by her hand. Lupin knew he was going to kill her, she had taken away the two people he cared about most and he had to finish her before she could inflict anymore pain on the world. He knew he could do it, he certainly had more than enough hatred to perform the curse, he leveled his wand at her, the incantation on his lips.

Lupin suddenly felt searing pain in his midsection, he looked down to see his own blood now pouring out of a hole in his gut. He collapsed onto the ground and found that he was unable to move most of his body parts, the Piercing Curse must have nicked his spine.

Dolohov walked over to Lupin, his wand still pointed at him. He stood over him for a few seconds smirking.

"Well, I finally get to join Tonks and the others." Lupin thought as Dolohov raised his wand.

"_Avada Kedavra!_" Lupin saw a flash of green light and then he knew no more.

* * *

**_A/N_: **Wow, this took much longer to write than I had hoped, but I guess it was worth it.

I'm actually happy with how this one turned out, much happier than I was with my first fanfic.

Thanks to Dylan who had to Beta the chapter, and for being awesome in general,

Thanks to Steph for helping me out with ideas.

If you like it, please review, if you don't, still review with what you think I should work on.

Thanks for reading.


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